FLCster for Ctp2

[Ekmek]

I know a lot is out about the source code soon. I'm not a programmer but I'm wondering if we can get the guy to release his cde that alowed for the viewing of Civ3 flcs and make it viewable in Ctp2 it would help the modding. I know the flcs are smaller than normal ctp2 size but if we can view flcs and use them in Ctp2 we can piggyback off the Civ3 community for mods and scenarios. just a suggestion.

[Solver]

CtP2 has same format flics as Civ 3?

Hmm... well, if that's the case, I believe its author can be persuaded. IIRC, Civ 3 FLICster is written in Visual Basic...

[Immortal Wombat]

CtP2 does not have flics. It has a completely different sprites format. Possible tools that would be useful would be:

1/ A sprite viewer: like flicster views Civ3 flics and their animation, but with CtP1 and 2 sprites, so we can view frames, and hopefully eventually modifiy them, and repackage them as sprites. Note that some of the coding for the sprite format is already public domain, but nobody has had any success reconstructing a viewer. Note also that CtP1 and CtP2 sprites are slightly different formats - CtP2 sprites are compressed differently I think.

2/ A FLIC-to-sprite converter tool. Or at least a FLIC-to-(group of correctly name tiffs) tool - which may be more helpful given that Civ3 stores movement, attack and death animations in different flics. This is somewhat possible, assuming flics have standard number of frames for each direction of movement and attack etc, and we can successfully identify and ignore the facings which aren't used in CtP.

Either way, I doubt the author of Flicster could help us much, beyond perhaps giving us some information about the structure of Civ3 flics.

[Solver]

Thanks IW, pretty much confirms what I thought... and converting Civ 3 unit graphics to CtP isn't high priority. IMO, most CtP units have even better looks.

[SMIFFGIG]

ctp units are not only bigger (thus more detail) but are 16bit where as the Civ3 ones are only 8bit


nether the less the Civ3 ones look more alive and less like static statues

[Solver]

That's because they have better animations... flic format is more intended for animations than targa.

For looks, CtP1 Tanks, Infectors and Marines gotta be my favorites... along with Civ 3 Infantry.

[The Big Mc]

Well it could be done if we loaded up the right flcs we could convert a flc into a organised set of tgas. we could then have a slide bar in the vb program which would allow us to change the size of the image and a button that would change the colour of the back ground to black. We could also split the shadow in to a different file.

All we would need then is to go into paint shop and make every tga have an alpha channel.

[Solver]

My point is, though, do we want to convert Civ 3 units to CtP? We currently have more colored units, with more detail, and worse animations. Moving a Civ 3 unit looks like moving it, in CtP a still unit suddenly goes moving... well, you know what it looks like. Overall, though, I am in favor of keeping CtP units as they are, because of their higher detail level.

[The Big Mc]

we would not be modding the civ3 units to look identical to the ones in civ3 we would limit the animations down to ctp stranded. And we could probably work out a way to make them blend in in paint shop.

we need some civ3 units as they are not represented in ctp or would improve scenarios.

[Maquiladora]

Yes, there isnt alot of good Ancient Age unit sprites.

[Ekmek]

My intent is not t o compete with Ctp2 but until with get a mod community packed with unit makers like Civ3 now, my recommendation is to make it so we can just piggyback off all their work. Besides if we also use the flc format its already easier to create units than making sprites and there are a lot of people that know how to do it. So I'm thinking once ctp2 has more fun play features a lot of old civ3 unit makers might come over to the ctp2 side.

[Solver]

They may... but let me stress again, this should no way be high priority for us right now. We have three dozen more crucial things to do with the source before we engage in graphical changes.

[The Big Mc]

Yes but if we make a very fast flic to ctp transfer system we will not need them to come to the ctp side they can continue to use the flc format and convert there work to the ctp sprit format very quickly. We would need the spr code for this. And both communities would benefit

[Solver]

But, creating such an automatic system is so much work that it's not worth it till most CtP2 source objectives are completed.

[The Big Mc]

no it will be vb run you put in the flc and the program crunches them up and gives you a ctp spr file. there no moding of ctp needed